Thread: Seattle: Raids target immigrants ordered to leave U.S

Raids target immigrants ordered to leave U.S.

By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporter

As federal immigration authorities step up raids at work sites and homes, a Times reporter and photographer accompanied a Seattle-based team whose mission is to find and arrest immigrants who've been given final orders to leave the country.

IT WAS DAYBREAK — not quite 5:30 a.m. — and a sprawling apartment complex in Burien, popular among immigrants, was stirring to life.

From open doorways, men in work boots, some with caps pulled low on their heads, made their way to parked cars — a few glancing nervously at a small knot of immigration officers nearby.

At an hour when a few residents were leaving for work but most were still asleep, a team of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had come in search of a single target: a mother of four who, after violating a no-contact order nearly a decade ago, was ordered removed from the country.

Ana Reyes-Velasquez, a hotel maid, would later say she had lived in fear of this day.

It came last week on the morning of her 41st birthday — a day she'd planned to spend watching her 13-year-old daughter graduate from Seahurst Elementary School in Burien.

But the ICE officers gathered outside her apartment that morning had other plans.

While bigger work-site raids grab large numbers of illegal immigrants and splashy headlines, raids at private homes go largely unnoticed.

They happen almost daily, part of an aggressive nationwide effort to find and deport more than 600,000 immigrants for whom a judge has issued a final order of removal.

Reyes-Velasquez was the Seattle team's second target that day.

Outside her second-story apartment, officers knocked, identifying themselves as "police" and rousing her 20-year-old son, Carlos Quiroz, who'd been sleeping on a mattress on the other side of the door.

Because he thought they were local police and not immigration officers, he said, he opened the door, and for his mother, "the life that I have came to a stop."

In the living room, officers gathered the six adults and four children from throughout the apartment to sort out their immigration status.

Reyes-Velasquez' 13-year-old daughter was distraught: "You're taking our mother away!" she cried.

Neil Clark, Seattle-based field director for detention and removal operations, explained to the child, who was born in the United States, that she could go to Mexico with her mother if Reyes-Velasquez is deported.

But the child was inconsolable: "I don't want to go to Mexico. I want my mom here."

The girl and her 4-year-old sister stayed with two adults in the home who are U.S. citizens.

Reyes-Velasquez was arrested. From an open window, her daughters watched as she was led in handcuffs to a waiting SUV.

Her son, boyfriend and brother-in-law, all illegal immigrants who were in the home at the time, were also taken into custody — "collaterals," as the officers sometimes call them.

They were taken first to the Department of Homeland Security district office in Tukwila, where they were fingerprinted and photographed — their criminal and immigration backgrounds checked.

In the process, Reyes-Velasquez mentioned to an officer that it was her birthday. The officer did a double-take, checked her paperwork and returned a look of sympathetic resignation.

By day's end, the fugitive team had located two of its three targets on that day's list, and arrested and detained a total of seven illegal immigrants — all from Mexico.

The team's final target of that day — a 38-year-old man who had been in the country since 1989 — was on a flight back to the Mexican border by last Friday.

Reyes-Velasquez and the others remained in detention.

"All this time I worried," she said. "Last week someone told me Immigration was at another apartment building, and I thought they'd come for me."

Now she fears what lies ahead. Deportation worries her the most.

"In Mexico I'll have nothing," she said. "My parents are too old. They are sick. I send money to support them."

Who's targeted, and why

Seattle's fugitive-operations team, launched in April 2004, is one of 61 across the country. One was started in Portland last fall, and one will be in place in Yakima by September.

Their list includes some 9,000 fugitives scattered across Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

Some of these immigrants come to the attention of authorities when their illegal immigration status is discovered, either in a workplace raid or some other encounter. Others break the law.

They become fugitives after failing to show up at an immigration hearing, or going on the lam after a judge orders them removed.

In a weeklong operation that ended last Friday, the ICE team had arrested seven of its targets, along with 19 others who got caught along with them. Among the 26, six had criminal convictions.

"Everything's targeted" to those on the list, director Clark said, though if officers do get inside a home and find illegal immigrants not on their list, "we might get incidental arrests."

The fugitive teams use a range of resources to find fugitives — driver's-license databases, credit-card purchases, property records.

Before a raid, they may also do surveillance to gauge a fugitive's daily routine. For example, before they arrested Reyes-Velasquez last week, officers had spotted her one day taking her younger daughter to day care.

The raids begin before sunrise, increasing the likelihood that the team will get to a target before he or she leaves for work.

In last Tuesday's operation, the first of three targets was an illegal immigrant from Mexico with a 1993 assault conviction, whom the team discovered living in a small, white house on Beacon Hill.

The neighborhood was still cloaked in darkness as officers spread out around the home, where a pickup and dump truck were parked in the driveway.

A Chihuahua tied up in the back yard was barking as the officers knocked for about 10 minutes, without a response.

The team's supervisor said that happens about 10 percent of the time. "It's hit or miss," he said.

They can wait it out, but decided in this case to move on.

Because the team's operations are administrative in nature, not criminal, they may enter only with an immigrant's permission.

If they do get inside — and they usually do — officers search the home for other illegal immigrants. They collect and check all driver's licenses.

Clark said that before officials arrest a parent, they make sure minor children are under adult care, as they did in the case of Reyes-Velasquez.

When she first came to Washington 17 years ago, Reyes-Velasquez lived in Yakima and worked as a cherry picker, she said. Court records show that in 1997 she violated a no-contact order and in 2000 was convicted of fourth-degree assault in a domestic dispute, a gross misdemeanor.

It was the 1997 violation that brought her to the attention of immigration authorities. In 2003 an immigration judge told her to leave the country, but in doing so opened a window that allowed her to appeal. She did, but lost — both at the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which in October allowed the original deportation ruling to stand.

She never left. She kept hoping, she said, that changes to immigration law might create a legal path for her and her two oldest children. "I've waited for 17 years. It was my last hope."

Dignity but no apologies

In the last of the day's three raids, three more people were arrested. Angel Hernandez, 38, was the team's target. His brother and sister became collateral arrests.

Hernandez said he was employed in the fishing industry in Alaska when he was picked up in a 1994 work-site raid.

He was released on bond with an order to report at a future date before an immigration judge in Seattle, and said he moved here with the intention of doing so. But he never received further notice, he said, and in his absence a judge ordered him removed.

On Friday, he was deported.

Steve Miller, a Seattle immigration attorney, calls such immigrants unintentional fugitives and said it's conceivable that many on the government's list are in that category.

"Some of them are fugitives because the court didn't get them the notice of a hearing, or they perhaps didn't notify the court of their change of address," he said.

Clark said immigrants are instructed on how to get correct mailing addresses to the court to be notified about hearings, and ultimately are responsible for following through.

"In 13 years, he had plenty of opportunities to come forward," Clark said.

In that time, Hernandez' appearance had changed so drastically that when he first opened the door to his Burien apartment that morning last week, officers weren't sure if he was their man. His head had been shaved nearly clean.

He denied them access, to protect his siblings, he later said. But according to officers, the sister, Maria Hernandez, did let them in. And that's when they arrested her and the other brother, who remain in detention.

Maria Hernandez has held a variety of jobs since moving to the Seattle area a few years ago but said she was injured on the job and her brothers have been supporting her.

"I cook for them, I clean for them," the 43-year-old said. "We take care of each other.

"Now, I'm a little scared. I don't know what will happen next."

Clark said he and members of his fugitive team understand there's a human side to the jobs they do.

"It's why we try to treat people with respect and dignity," he said.

He acknowledged that the arrest of Reyes-Velasquez could have been better timed to avoid taking her on her birthday. But, he said, "That happens. The officers probably didn't realize that until she brought it up.

"Our role is to enforce the court's orders and that's what we're doing. And we don't apologize for it."

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l ... id03m.html

KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has 61 fugitive-operations teams across the country, including one in Seattle, that make targeted raids at private homes, seeking immigrants who are fugitives. In the process they may arrest illegal immigrants who happen to be in the home at the time.

The targets: More than 600,000 immigrants are on a nationwide list of fugitives, including about 9,000 believed to be in Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

Seattle's team: Since it was formed in 2004, it has arrested nearly 1,800 fugitives, nearly a quarter of them people who've been accused or convicted of a crime after arriving in the U.S. In an operation last week, the team arrested seven fugitives, five with convictions for offenses ranging from driving without a valid license to burglary and assault.

All 61 teams: Combined, the teams have arrested nearly 13,000 people, about 1,800 of them accused or convicted of crimes.

Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Good work! When have they got Elvira scheduled?

Do they have a team in Chicago? I hope Elvira Arellano is on their list! Here's their chance of showing they are serious about enforcing the law! This would generate good media attention.

Go Home...and you may apple to return the right way...better yet...start a movement in your own Country and fix it so you don't have to leave

Originally Posted by redbadger

Go Home...and you may apple to return the right way...better yet...start a movement in your own Country and fix it so you don't have to leave

Agreed.

I love these "feel good" stories. They always make my day!

Not to bad a write up, seemed pretty fair from all ends. Now we only need about another hundred Fugitive Teams to clean up the backlog.

In the living room, officers gathered the six adults and four children from throughout the apartment to sort out their immigration status.

10 people in an apartment?? It must have been a 5-bedroom unit!!

Steve Miller, a Seattle immigration attorney, calls such immigrants unintentional fugitives and said it's conceivable that many on the government's list are in that category.


Now they are unintentional fugitives? That is almost as good as undocumented Americans. Do they really think we are dumb enough to fall for these feel good names for illegal aliens?